Iowa State faces off against their second straight SEC-bound opponent in a match against No. 7 Texas on Saturday.
The Cyclones are coming off a 7-0 loss to No. 22 Oklahoma on Thursday, a match where nobody got anything going, and all six Cyclones lost their singles matches in straight sets.
Staying consistent with other Big 12 foes, Texas has been dominant against Iowa State in the matchup history. Texas leads the all-time series 27-1, with Iowa State capturing its only win against the Longhorns early last season when Texas was ranked No. 1.
The Longhorns are 14-4 on the year and have won their last two matches. All four of their losses have been to top 20 teams, No. 16 UCLA, No. 3 Oklahoma State, No. 3 Stanford and No. 1 Oklahoma State.
Texas has four ranked singles players, two of which are inside the top-25. No. 21 Sabina Zeynalova plays her matches from the first singles spot and is 5-4 on the year, with eight of her nine completed matches being against ranked opponents. Zeynalova most recently defeated Dana Guzman from Oklahoma, the same player who defeated Iowa State’s Anna Supapitch Kuearum in straight sets Thursday.
No. 23 Malaika Rapolu splits time with Zeynalova in the first singles spot but also plays in the second and third singles. Rapolu is sitting at a 14-2 singles record on the year and is unbeaten with eight wins in the third singles spot.
Texas has also managed to land four doubles pairs on the ITA rankings, with No. 11 Taisiya Pachkaleva and Zeynalova leading the way. The highly ranked pair has an 8-3 record from the first doubles spot.
Iowa State has been playing around with moving players to different singles and doubles spots but has found minimal success in doing so. Isabella Dunlap, who was 3-7 in the second singles spot, recently got bumped down to third singles and has lost the first three matches there.
Ashlee Narker, who replaced Dunlap in second singles, has also gone 0-3 in a new playing position.
Iowa State is no stranger to playing against highly-ranked opponents, but it has been unable to pull off any upsets. The match against Texas is the last of Iowa State’s matches against the top of the Big 12.
The Cyclones’ last four regular season matches are against Cincinnati, West Virginia, UCF, and Houston, who are all in the bottom half of the Big 12 Conference standings.
Iowa State hosts Texas at noon Saturday at the Ames High Tennis Complex.
